LETTER: 2 ALS, to Mrs. Diaz and to Aleck.
Two Letters from Louise Imogen Guiney
Guiney, Louise. Autograph letter signed “Yours for service, Louise Imogen Guiney” to “Mrs. Diaz.” Auburndale, Nov. 7, 1888; one leaf; affixed to larger sheet taken from an album; recto only; creased from mailing; slightly browned.
Together with:
Guiney, Louise Imogen. Autograph letter signed “Ever affectionately, L.I.G.” to “Aleck.” ND [Ca. 1916]; one leaf; written on verso of a typed letter signed to Guiney from W.H. Smith & Son (Aug. 26, 1916); creased from mailing; slight spots of discoloration.
Guiney’s letter to “Mrs. Diaz”, not found in The Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney (1962), finds her regretfully declining to assist “Mrs. Diaz” on a project: “I have to thank you for your friendly and interesting letter, with its enclosures, and for the honor you do me in counting my name in among the helpful company. But I am afraid I have no organizable resources, and would be of no avail.” She goes on to quote Emerson, saying she wished she were, “less of the seeing eye, and more of the helping hand; for I realize at least, the uplifting work of the Union, and glory profoundly in it.”
Guiney’s following letter, also not found in The Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney (1962), queries “Aleck” about her quest to acquire Naval posters: “How do I approach the Admiralty for Naval posters? Mr. Castle’s mouth is still open, and I have not been able to send him any for weeks [Castle was a Bostonian organizing a sale of books, manuscripts, letters, and posters to benefit American soldiers fighting in Europe]. He also wants Welsh and Scots army ones: but my enquiries in Edinburgh and Cardiff brought no reply.” Her letter is written on the verso of a typed letter from W.H. Smith & Son, which contains their aforementioned suggestion of the Admiralty as the best place to get naval posters. She concludes her letter to Aleck with comments about the weather and her general thoughts on Oxford: “Such a downpour, as I write! How beautiful rain and cloud are among the hills. I’m not a bit sorry I fled from Oxford. It is quite another place since the ______blessed, motor-buses began to fill it.”
Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) was an American poet and scholar and the author of 32 published books and hundreds of magazine articles. As a young woman, the death of her father in the Civil War left her financially vulnerable and left to provide for her mother. To make ends meet, she submitted her writing to newspapers and magazines. Although her work as a writer was well respected, it did not pay well, leaving Guiney to work as a postmistress, in the Boston Public Library, and take other odd jobs throughout her entire writing career. The writer Alice Brown, with whom Guiney collaborated on Robert Louis Stevenson: A Study, called Guiney “a quick-silver blend of buoyancy and wit, duly tempered by a special potency of Gallic grace with its apprehension of the mot juste and its infallible divination in forms of art” (“An American Poet: Louise Imogen Guiney,” by Alice Brown, The North American Review, Vol. 213, No. 785, April 1921).
On the influences behind Guiney’s writing, Patricia Fanning writes:
[It] reflects the pressure she encountered from the cultural and literary traditions surrounding her. First, in the mainstream literary debate between Realism and Romance …Guiney's educational background pulled her toward the Romantics. This tendency was reinforced by her association with Holmes and the influence of Holmes, Longfellow, and Whittier, all clearly Romantic poets.
Second, early in 1890, Guiney had traveled to Ireland where she met several of the Irish Literary Revivalists, including William Butler Yeats, Katherine Tynan, and Dora Sigerson. They too appealed to Guiney's romantic side, as did Boston Irish Romantics O'Reilly and Conway of the Pilot.
Guiney's adherence to the Romantic notion of both Boston's "Good Gray Poets", coupled with her belief in Ireland's "Celt," the me
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